HIS NUMBER'S UP

AFTER 14 YEARS, THE LONGEST TENURE OF ANY BOND, DANIEL CRAIG IS ABOUT TO HANG UP HIS MARTINI GLASS AND WALTHER PPK. EMPIRE TRACKS 007 ACROSS THE GLOBE, FROM LONDON TO JAMAICA AND NEW YORK, TO BRING YOU THE ULTIMATE INTEL ON NO TIME TO DIE. AND HIS EMOTIONAL FAREWELL...

- CHRIS HEWITT

THREE SIMPLE SYLLABLES. Two simpler words. But their cultural significance is huge. We’ve heard them plenty of times over the years. Sometimes there’s a variation on a theme — “Goodbye, Mr. Bond” most often — but the basic gist remains the same. A megalomaniacal villain with designs on taking over the world has lured James Bond, the world’s greatest secret agent, into a trap and is about to bump him off.

Today, those words are being delivered in Cuba by Christoph Waltz’s Ernst Stavro Blofeld, head of evil organisation SPECTRE and Bond’s adopted brother. Well, not quite. To be completely honest, Empire isn’t in Cuba, but a soundstage at Pinewood Studios that’s pretending to be Cuba, while outside the October wind rages and howls. And we’re not listening to Christoph Waltz, but a member of the production team on No Time To Die, the 25th James Bond movie, repeating lines, for the benefit of the actors, that will later be dubbed by Waltz. With, we fervently hope, a little more feeling than the monotone mumblings currently emanating apologetically from loudspeakers on set.

Anyway, the gist. At some point in No Time To Die, Bond finds himself in Cuba where, along with an associate called Paloma (Ana de Armas), he’s wrangled himself an invite to the hottest party of the year — a gathering of SPECTRE’s unfinest, the bad and the beautiful, the eye-catching and eye-gouging alike. And as he and Paloma wander around, talking to each other on those little Bluetooth earpieces that come in handy in movies like this, a voice can be heard, broadcasting to the throng.